Just a quick poll!
Please explain your reasoning- if you care to
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Spanking | Yes or No
Just a quick poll!
Please explain your reasoning- if you care to
Discipline, spanking, and whipping are cool. Parenting not so much.
Agreed Seth! This pathetic attempt at a poll, was pathetic.
Spanking has always been a more divisive issue among libertarians. Speaking as someone whose parents would have to do breathing exercises prior to spanking to keep their anger under control, I still think it is a complicated issue.
I know it’s a cop-out answer, but if I were to have kids my thought would be to try and minimize the use of spanking as much as possible. My own parents spanked whenever they felt necessary because they really didn’t know how to teach me any other way. I would hope that libertarian parents would aspire to less violent, but firm methods for discipline. It’s one matter to be a “I just want to be friends with my kid” and another to still act as a parent in a non-violent manner.
I’m a non spanking parent and the science is on my side.
Stefan Molyneux has made several videos on this subject.
This one is really good: How To Lower Your Child’s IQ – A Conversation with Dr. Murray A. Straus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDbPNV63BI
I would love to hear more about how you interact with your child as a parent that doesn’t spank. Ive listened to stefan for a while now so I’m well aware of all science behind, I’m more curious at the real world implementation. Do you just model the good behavior you want your child to have and they do it? how do you deal with them when they do something you didn’t want them to do? I’m not a parent but the peaceful parenting intrigues me so much so i just wanted to hear your thoughts on it.
Cameron, I’m a non-spanking parent, and plan to write more about this in the future, but it’s actually never been an issue. I can’t even imagine hitting one of my children. When conflicts do come up with our son, we find that reasoning with him just works. I don’t mean that everything works out perfectly or that he always does what we want him to (but then we’re not trying to raise someone who always does what people in authority want him to), but that’s how we work things out.
The bigger challenge for us is avoiding any kind of punishment/reward as a way of …well, getting our way. The science is also against using punishment and reward (see the book “Unconditional Parenting”), so we really want to avoid it – and most of the time we do – but it can be challenging.
It’s even more interesting with our daughter, who is developmentally disabled, and also younger. We simply *can’t* reason with her yet, and of course using violence would be out of the question even if we weren’t against spanking. Yet I also don’t want to resort to punishment/reward with her. I don’t have an answer in her case that fully “works” – but what works best (for both our children actually) is just really engaging with them, treating them with respect, and building a strong relationship of love and trust.
Cameron: if you’re really interested in real-world application of these ideas, check out the Peaceful Parenting group: http://liberty.me/groups/peaceful-parenting/
I’m new to this stuff, but there are some pretty smart people in the group with great ideas.
Battery | Yes or No
How is this even a question? The fact that anyone thinks threatening to hit or hitting children is acceptable is mind-boggling. Is it okay to hit your spouse? Your friends? Other people?
“Spanking” is battery. It’s the initiation of physical force against the body of another person, and it clearly violates the non-aggression principle. It’s unlibertarian, i.e., uncivilized.
It’s a question because it’s so prevalent. I’ve heard estimates that upwards of 90% of parents in the U.S. admit to spanking as a form of punishment. Unfortunately, I was raised with parent’s among that group. Not spanking, therefore, was not a “no-brainer” to me. I spent most of my life thinking that it was ok and, more than that, somehow virtuous. Fortunately I was open minded enough to learn otherwise before becoming a parent myself.
I just had a lot of deprogramming to do. I believed in an entity called the government at one point too, and even advocated for a positive role for government in society. Indoctrination is a bitch; have patience with the people who are coming out of it. Show those people what love and tolerance are while trying to convince them to adopt those strategies themselves. I find it far more effective than condescension.
Not a parent, but neither I nor my sisters were ever hit as children. And I don’t think our parents had any trouble with discipline. On the other hand most (though not all) of the people I know who were hit as children did seem to deliberately misbehave. I think physical violence towards a child is both a violation of the non-aggression principle and makes parenting a lot harder too. It looks to me like it makes the child less amenable to simple direction which is not accompanied by threats of violence. And even then you see parents yelling threats at their children in public all the time, while their children completely ignore them. I think we focus too much on punishment rather than compensation. If you do something wrong, you should work towards correcting that mistake. Punishment which does not compensate for the mistake in any way is unproductive and creates pointless fear and stress.
Absolutely no.
Spanking is violent aggression. Hitting is physical abuse of a human being.
It’s counter-productive. It teaches the child to continue with the unwanted behavior, but only when they think they can get away with it. It does nothing to teach the child that the unwanted behavior is not in their interests anyway. Plus, violence towards children decreases the parent’s self-esteem and leads to deep-down feelings of shame.
Love, attention, and lots of patience is the alternative. It’s better for the child, and better for the parent.
Well I can say this. My mother hit almost everyday while my father did not. To this day I have a much better relationship with my father than my mother. I value his advise and have a lot of respect for him. I cannot say the same for my mother.
I had a mother who would threaten to beat me with a belt every time she felt disrespected, only she didn’t have the courage to do it herself so she would try to get my father to do it, to which he would say NO. He didn’t want to hit his kids(Mostly).
I have a respectful relationship with my Dad, and no relationship with my mother
I think reasoning with your kids and spanking them are on two separate poles; one is rational, the other is irrational. For a parent to properly teach their children, they must reason with them. To spank is more akin to training, an act fit for a dog perhaps but not so much for people. I’ve never understood why there’s a divide in opinion on this among libertarians; I get a very strong feeling that it’s minarchists and other conservatives who propagate the notion that spanking your children is necessary, as they also put forth that people are naturally evil and thus must be ruled by some benevolent authority.
My parents only reasoned with me until I was 4 or 5; once two more siblings came along and they both had to work, there was no time to reason, spanking was much faster and easier. I was often left to care for them while they worked, which was a nightmare in itself. My mother, too, faced this same scenario; she was hit as a child and was forced to care for a younger sibling. She divorced my father when I was young. Her mother, likewise, who also divorced my mother’s father when she was young. My sister is going through the exact same scenario with her son, she’s only ~20. It’s funny how the abuse repeats like that. If there’s any benefit to spanking, I can’t see it for the life of me.
It’s funny – even the best dog trainers will tell you not to hit your dog or scream at them. Of course you can’t reason with dogs, but hitting is a poor method of training nonetheless. So hitting: what IS it good for?
No. Never acceptable. I cannot condone aggression, especially against a creature that can’t defend itself and is essentially captive. It is abuse.
It is extremely sad that this is still a subject of debate. The methods of parenting reflect the true goals of the parents. Do you want your children to obey or do you want your children to reason? Leaving aside the immorality of spanking, every time you spank you miss an opportunity to actually teach your child conflict resolution and negotiation skills. No matter how you were raised, if you love liberty, don’t teach your children to obey. Don’t model your parenting after the authoritarian statist system of punishment. Don’t be a statist in your own family circle and a lover a liberty outside of it.
Could not agree more, I was shocked to even see this being asked.
@Cameron T. Belt
I have no experience with spanking. But I don’t think that simply condemning it as “aggression” is very helpful to a parent who has learned spanking as a method of child control.
I have a 1.5 year old, and we try to avoid punishing at all, because kids at her age tend to forget what they’re being punished for anyway. So when she does something inappropriate (like biting her mom!) we just point out the effects of what she’s done (“That hurts your mommy!”) and explain to her that it is forbidden (“No biting!”). We try on our best scolding-disappointed-parent faces, but mostly she just laughs. She does, however, bite her mom less and less.
My experience is that little kids want to experiment, but they also just want their parents’ praise.
I have to practice extreme patience with the kid, but we try to get lots of practice. Especially, she and I spend a huge amount of time just roaming the park, and over the months of this she has become very good at coming back to me when I call her, etc. Again, she has her own crazy individuality and needs, but she wants to be with her daddy, so it works. Just slowly.
PS: Cameron T. Belt, did you know that Cameron M. Belt is a Liberty.me author who just released a guide on entrepreneurship today? Are you guys alternate-universe versions of each other?
I am going to go ahead and bite because there seems to be some soap-box going on here, particularly from non-parents. Having been a child who benefited from spanking, I would like to make a few points. First, “spanking” is not “aggression” or “hitting.” If used correctly, it is the use of a quick and harmless physical stimulus, to gain the attention of the child in order to immediately correct destructive behavior where there is no opportunity to reason. The purpose of a spank should be to prevent imminent harm. In the today’s world there are many dangers that do not present themselves clearly to a child and cannot be quickly explained so that a child would understand. Even the most responsible parent will find themselves in situation where they must quickly react. When the gravity of the situation rises to the level that a reasonable parent decides to spank to correct destructive behavior and impart the seriousness of that situation to their child, it should not be criticized. There is no substitute for the direct, physical stimulus of a spank when there is no opportunity for explanation and something valuable is at stake, or when the child is otherwise not receptive. Having been a difficult child myself, I know that a swift swat was the only way of gaining my attention and can be credited for undoubtedly preventing significant harm in several situations. While it should not be accepted as a parenting method, it should nevertheless remain a parenting tool if required.
Hi Avery,
I don’t think what you’re describing qualifies as spanking. Spanking is defined as slapping with one’s open hand or a flat object, especially on the buttocks as a punishment. By that definition, spanking is hitting; it is aggression.
You seem to be talking about situations involving imminent danger, such as a child about to touch a hot stove or run into traffic. In situations like that, the guardian is responsible for acting in the best interest of the child, and slapping their hand away from a hot stove or grabbing them away from a busy road is perfectly reasonable and is not aggression. It’s also not spanking.
Avery, I couldn’t agree with you LESS. If you have time to hit your child, you have time to pull him away without hurting him. I’m sorry, but hitting an innocent child, i don’t care how you justify it, shows a lack of self control, a lack on imagination, a lack of insight into human nature. In my experience, not only is it totally unnecessary, it’s something I never had the urge to do.
I hate to pull rank on the childless posters, but this is absolutely true: there are some experiences in life you must have to know what they are like, and being a parent is one of them. I was afraid that I would hit my children before I had children, probably bc I have a rather volatile nature. But once I had them and loved them so much, it simply never occurred to me to hit them. You simply can’t know how much you can love another person until you have a baby. I used to look at my baby daughter and wonder how this little being, who can barely communicate, who does virtually nothing but sit in my lap can elicit in me so much emotion that I ached with it. She was from the very beginning to today my very best friend. I could NEVER and have never hit her.
So when I see people making arguments like yours, I am aghast and simply can’t understand it.
On the flip side, I was hit as a child and I can’t express the utter betrayal I felt. Trust me, you don’t want your child to feel that way. It will haunt your relationship for the rest of your life.
Would you call getting “spanked” everyday necessary? Would you use it as a default method for discipline? I don’t think you would or should. Research shows that children who are spanked are typically the most misbehaved. Regardless I am pretty sure the discussion is about the systematic administration of pain as a means to control. Not a quick reaction to remove a child from danger. It didn’t help me make good choices in life. The advice of my father is what helped me do that. Getting hit everyday just made me resent my mother. I hated her when I was a kid and had no respect for her as a human being. I try to have a relationship with her now but it will never be the same as my father. I think she probably was trying to do what she thought was best but the memories are still there. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. Yelling, screaming, and regularly beating the shit out of your kid is not going to make them take your advice. It only makes you get better at not getting caught.
“quick and harmless physical stimulus” sounds like something Donald Rumsfeld might say. Was it not he who coined the phrase “mild, non injurious physical contact” to describe the torture of Guantanamo Bay prisoners?
Also, can anyone provide an example of a dangerous situation where you would be able to spank the child but not be able to grab hold of them or pull them away from the danger?
Perhaps you do pull them away and then hit them. If so I would suggest the hitting part is not only not necessary, but incredibly confusing and damaging for the child.
I’ve just posted an article I wrote a while ago on this topic: http://bretigne.liberty.me/2014/05/13/how-spanking-serves-the-state/
Of course it is never “necessary” to hit a child in order to teach them. As I mention in the article, even dog trainers agree that you should never hit a dog to train it. Yet many people still believe that it’s acceptable – even necessary – to hit children to “teach” them.
For me, what is far far worse than any physical harm or emotional trauma that might come from spanking is what it *does* teach children (because kids learn from what you DO far more than from what you SAY): That it is perfectly acceptable to use violence to get others to do what you want; that it’s OK to hit those who are smaller than you; and that sometimes it is not only OK but necessary. If that’s how someone was raised, it stands to reason that they come to believe it’s “the only way.” And that is the real tragedy – that we live in a society filled with people who believe that authoritative violence is both acceptable and necessary.
It would be most useful if posters also indicated whether they are, or ever have been, parents.
I’m not a parent, that time in my life will come later. I do take care of special needs children for a living if that gives me any credibility. I don’t think one needs to necessarily have children to be critical of certain parenting styles. This would be like saying you have to be a Government employee to be critical of the Government. Besides that, every parent I know, regardless of parenting styles, always says that their child is a well behaved Angel. A person with children using their own for an argumentative example is 90% of the time going to be biased. A person without children has at least a better chance of being unbiased. Even if they don’t have experience raising kids most likely they had parents and experienced the administration of a specific parenting style. I myself grew up with two parents who both had completely different parenting styles. My Mother would use threats, mind games, and physical violence as a means to force me to submit and obey. My Father would take time to talk to me, give advice based on his past experiences, and remove privileges for discipline purposes. The results: I rarely obeyed my Mother and developed an unhealthy resentment for her very existence. I almost always obeyed my Father because I understood why he had his rules, I respected him, and I wanted to make him proud. I still value my Father’s advice to this day. I love my Mother but I will probably never be able to get close to her. There has always been an emotional block for her. I hope this helps, cheers mate.
P.S. Antony I realize you did not imply that non-parents had a less valuable opinion. Someone else did though and since you sort of brought up the matter here I found it an appropriate place to post my opinion. Thank you.
When my daughter was born, her mother and I decided that spanking was ok. We were both raised that way, and suffered no ill effects from it. Well as it turned out, we had no reason to spank her until she turned 3. One day she climbed up onto the bathroom sink and got into the medicine cabinet discovering a tube of aloe vera cream. She opened the tube and squirted it all over the living room furniture. Upon discovering this a few minutes later, I decided to spank her. All it took for me was the look on her face afterwards to resolve to never do that again. It was a look of shock and betrayal, I never want to see that look on my daughter’s face again. She is now 11, and a very well behaved, mature little girl. Sometimes you have to learn and grow as a parent as much as the child is.
I had almost the exact same experience. I spanked my dtr one time and decided I’d never hit her again. I was able to maintain discipline fairly effectively by sendingmy kids to their room to “think about what (you) did”. Usually within 10 minutes I had a tearful, apologetic, remorseful kid wanting to re-unite with the family, which they did with no recurrence of the behavior. That said, as long as the spanking is a swift “get their attention” swat, and not an abusive beating with a 3 inch thick black belt, it’s a parental judgement call, IMHO. Not all kids are the same, some are tougher to “reach”. I’d like to think spanking is never necessary, but I’m not willing to tell others how to rear their kids.
I am glad to see that every single reply, aside from two, state they are against spanking. I am not so pleased to see some posters act as though I said, “Help! I don’t know if I should spank or not!” It’s a poll of sorts, I had my belief already.
Yesterday there was a sweet little baby sitting at a table with her mom. She asked in coo to be put by her bike stroller hybrid. The mom said, “I thought you wanted to be a big girl, but ok.” The baby then began to crawl away, the dad came and picked her up. She screamed, just one screech of disapproval. The dad said he would slap her if she didn’t stop. She couldn’t walk, and didn’t say a word the entire time I was in their presence. I wanted to hit the man in the face. That’s my opinion.
Here are some of the facts and medical studies:
* „Psychologytoday” – by Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D.
„In terms of whether parental aggression (spanking) decreases aggression in the child, the answer is no. In fact, spanking tends to increase child aggression. ”
„Spanking does not convey positive guidance on how to behave in a particular situation, only how not to behave if a threat of punishment is at hand.”
„ Long-term compliance is decreased after spanking (Gershoff, 2002; Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2013).”
„It destroys trust. Children trust their parents just a little less.
…Spanking is harmful for even more reasons, the review indicates:
Spanking destroys mental health.
Spanking increases delinquency and criminal behavior.
Spanking makes it more likely the child will be physically abused.”
– http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201309/research-spanking-it-s-bad-all-kids
* Molly S. Castelloe, Ph.D. in The Me in We
„Spanking erodes developmental growth in children and decreases a child’s IQ, a recent Canadian study shows.
This analysis, conducted at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, offers new evidence that corporal punishment causes cognitive impairment and long-term developmental difficulties.” – http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-me-in-we/201202/how-spanking-harms-the-brain?tr=MostEmailed
* SMU, psychology professor George Holden talks with Journalist Anderson Cooper about spanking as part of the „Anderson” show. – Should Children Be Spanked?
* „Daily Mirror”:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/q71/557517_613922561964346_639753957_n.jpg
* „Medicalnewstoday”, – „The study, published in Psychological Science and led by Professor Dieter Wolke of Warwick University in the UK and Dr. William E. Copeland of Duke University Medical Center, is the first of its kind to investigate the effects of childhood bullying on adulthood.
The results of the study show that of the four groups, the bully-victim proved the most vulnerable group of all, suffering several adverse consequences in adulthood, including:
-Increased likelihood of psychiatric disorder diagnosis
-Increased likelihood of smoking on a regular basis
-Slow recovery rate from illness
-Poor academic achievement, struggling to keep work, low economic wealth
-Less likely to form saving habits in young adulthood.
-Difficulty in maintaining friendships and positive relations with parents.”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265905.php
* – http://stopspanking.org/resources/
* http://blog.selfarcheology.com/2013/09/the-cycle-of-child-abuse-and-how-to-end.html
Watch videos:
* The First Real-Time Study of Parents Spanking Their Kids
* The Science of Spanking! A Conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff
I am a parent (15 yr old girl and 1 yr old girl) and absolutely have used spanking as an effective disciplinary tool.
The key as was mentioned above, is that “spanking” as such should not be equated to “hitting” broadly. When I use the term it means exactly the following: 2-3 swats on a clothed behind, administered in private after explanation, only administered if the parent has had time to calm down if needed, and with ample time afterward for reconciliation/talking/apologies/forgiveness/etc. Then immediate return to the general public/family area where everybody goes on with their lives. It is ONLY ever used in response to confirmed willful disobedience by a child who is under an age where consistent and *effective* reasoning skills can be expected.
The reason this is a critical tool, is because obedience at a distance is necessary in children in order to keep them from harm. A child must stop when you say “Stop!” or they can run into a street, pull a pot off a stove, fall in a pool, etc. Expecting and disciplining to conformance in smaller issues is how you assure that you will get obedience when it is of life-saving importance.
Many in the libertarian community balk at these types of ideas because we have a simple, and well-supported, aversion to force and coercion of all kinds. We psychologically aren’t built to agree with the enforcement of an authority over the individual, and we jerk away from the concept of disciplining to obedience. But it must be recognized that a child has not yet developed the reasoning and experience with which to make decisions in disregard to instructions. This general characteristic of irrationality in small children modifies the acceptable behaviors towards them of certain well-meaning and sufficiently knowledgeable authorities, namely their parents and those designated by their parents.
We see this in some of the above examples of acceptable “alternatives” to spanking, the reference to grabbing the child, pulling them from danger, picking them up. These are all, if we are to be consistent, just as much forms of battery as the form of spanking I described above. In fact, jerking on a child in a hasty manner is far more likely to cause real harm than the calm preventative discipline I explained. Further, if you claim you have a plan of parenting which does not require any involuntary coercion / physical force to be used against your child, you either have never been a parent or you have only ever experienced some strangely abnormal group of pacifist, super-rational toddlers.
Let me be clear. I am NOT advocating smacking children, hitting them in public, striking in anger, beating them because they made a mistake. Corporeal punishment properly administered, is a prudent, infrequent action, taken in private and again ONLY due to willful disobedience. Striking a child in public only embarrasses and engenders bitterness towards the parent, hitting a child because they made a mistake (e.g. while potty training) causes proven psychological harm, lashing out in anger teaches a child to be angry and alienates them from a loving relationship with their parents.
However, calm, moderate, age appropriate, preventative discipline by spanking, should develop a respect for parental authority at a distance and in absentia, which helps protect a child from harm and avoid applications of physical force (grabbing, yanking, etc.) which are actually far more dangerous for the child.
Taylor, I appreciate that you are approaching this thoughtfully. However, what evidence do you have that spanking in the way you describe is necessary or superior to non-physical methods?
I also want to point out that a husband giving his wife 2-3 swats – privately, after calming down and explaining things to her – after she willfully disobeyed him may be an effective disciplinary tool that changes her future behavior. That doesn’t make it justified.
Wow, Taylor, what to say? First off, what you do with your children is obviously your business, and I wouldn’t dream of trying to change your mind. Doesn’t look possible anyway. I must protest, however, against your strawman argument that pulling a child from danger is battery. Oh please, this is simply ridiculous, totally false exaggeration.
For anyone else who’s interested, here are some tips to peaceful parenting.
1. If I modeled and taught safe practices, my children rarely did anything that was dangerous. I truly mean rarely, as in I can only think of one incident.
2. More importantly, since I didn’t habitually nag and yell at them, nor put arbitrarily confining limits on their behavior, they always responded to my shout–or more often my whisper in the ear–that they stop whatever they were doing. I did not have to hit them for them to understand that my shout (or whisper) was something to take seriously. They could hear it in my tone of voice.
3. Knowing something about child psychology and brain development was immensely helpful, because I had a realistic idea of what to expect in terms of their abilities. I tried to avoid putting them in situations that they couldn’t cope with. For example, I NEVER took both children to the grocery store when they were a. under the age of 4, b. tired, c. hungry. duh. I also watched for warning signs and got out when the getting was good.
4. Another very helpful observation was given to me by my mother. She said she could never understand why people expect children to be calm and quiet. She said, “They want children to be like little old men sitting in a corner.” She knew they have exuberance and energy and want to use it. So let them. I find many parents punish their children for nothing more than being children, which leads to resentment and rebellion. Children generally don’t rebel when they have nothing to rebel against.
Here’s an example of what I mean. When our children were 2 & 4, we lived in a little house with a little front yard and no fence. Next door was another little house, with a 2 and 4 year old, and a chain link fence around the yard. Our children would play all day in our yard. Their children played in their yard, too, but whenever someone opened the gate in the chain link fence, their children, especially the 2 yr old boy, ran straight for that gate and out into the street. Scared the bejeezes out of the parents. They’d look over at our children staying in the yard without a fence and couldn’t figure out why. One day, the mother finally asked me about it. I told her that one reason is they know that cars are dangerous. But the big reason they stayed in the yard is because there was no fence. Her children wanted to escape confinement, whereas mine weren’t confined.
I might as well have been speaking Swahili to this woman. I’m sure that Taylor thinks it’s Swahili, too.
Children are human beings. They deserve to be treated as human beings. To me, that meant that I would explain whatever I had to explain, understand them as best as I could and find safe and peaceful ways to teach them whatever they needed and wanted to know. Simply, they were treated kindly, with patience and respect. They were not hit as if they were dumb animals, they were not cooped up inside a fence nor sent to prison for 6 hours a day, they were not bribed as if they were trained seals. Obedience was not our goal.
And yes, there was very little coercion in our house and no, our children were not abnormal. They were just treated differently from other children. Believe it or not, I don’t care. It’s true and I witnessed the same in other homeschooling families in our circle.
For more, I strongly suggest The Self Respecting Child by Alison Stallibrass. Also Punished by Rewards by Alfie Cohn, and, of course, The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. I shudder to think what I would have done without these genius books.
